The Champion (9 page)

Monday released her stranglehold and hugged herself instead.

‘Hervi’s to be hired too if he so wishes,’ Arnaud added. ‘I’ll talk to him as soon as I see him.’

‘Never mind Hervi, what about this position of yours?’ Clemence demanded. ‘Who is Bertran of Lavoux?’ She was less ecstatic than her husband and daughter. In the past, Arnaud had been known to purchase a pig in a poke.

‘Scold,’ he said, his eyes dancing, then kissed her on the lips. ‘He’s a Norman border baron who has recently come into his inheritance. Apparently the former lord died of old age, and the household knights are mostly his contemporaries. Bertran is hiring new blood – experienced knights, but not in their dotage.’

‘And he is to pay you a wage?’ Clemence repeated, wariness and wonderment competing for a place in her expression.

‘Twenty marks a year, plus board and lodging for all of us and my horses. I told him that both of you were skilled sempstresses and that pleased him greatly. We won’t want for anything and there will be a secure roof over our heads – a castle roof. I know how much you miss that kind of security.’

Clemence shook her head, utterly bemused. ‘It is too good to be true,’ she said, and then suddenly she laughed, and her mood changed. Rising to her feet, she pirouetted around the tent, graceful despite her burgeoning body. Enchanted, Monday watched her mother, seeing a side of her that was very rarely exposed. Her father’s expression was one of pure adoration, all the harsh lines of his face melted and tender. Monday felt a warm rush of love for both of them.

‘Bertran also said that he was looking for a scribe, and I told him I knew of one,’ Arnaud continued as he caught his swirling wife in his arms, kissed her and set her down on a stool. ‘I’ll have a word with Alexander when I see Hervi.’

Her eyes sparkling, Clemence clung to her husband. ‘I haven’t felt this giddy since the day we eloped!’

Arnaud chuckled, the sound pleasant and deep. ‘Neither have I.’

‘Can I be the one to tell Alex?’ Monday asked. ‘I’ve got to give him his cloak anyway.’ She folded the garment over her arm. Her parents would probably relish a moment alone, and besides, the tent was not big enough to contain her own delight. She needed to let the fields and sky absorb the emotion fizzing through her veins, and she was bursting to share her news, as her father had shared his.

‘Yes, go.’ Her father’s eyes never left his wife’s.

‘Do not take too long,’ Clemence added for good measure, but the smile remained on her face.

‘No, Mama, I won’t.’ The cloak draped over her arm, Monday left their tent and walked through the sprawl of the camp. The air was filled with dust, with the smell of singed horn and hot iron from the farrier’s booth where the destriers were being shod. The more tantalising aroma of meat and onions from a cook stall flooded her nostrils. Sounds of the tourney life filled her ears, the cries from the stalls, the banter of the knights; the clang of smithy tools on weapon steel, and the duller thud of that weapon steel upon wooden shields. It was a life she would soon be leaving behind, and despite its hardships and uncertainties, she knew that she was going to miss it.

She stopped as an entourage of riders blocked her path – a nobleman and his lady escorted by two squires, two serjeants and a maid. The nobleman was in his middle thirties with a paunch bulging his ruby silk tunic and the porcine features of good living. The woman was a slender vision in a gown of the palest blue-green silk, embroidered all over with tiny golden flowers. Her head was covered with a gauzy veil, held in place by a thin gold-coloured circlet, and her braids hung free beneath it, pale blonde as new butter. She was perched upon a pretty white mare and the harness was of expensive red leather decorated with a row of tinkling little bells.

And ilka tet of her horse’s mane,

Hung fifty silver bells and nine.

Thus had Alexander entertained them with a ballad about a man who encountered the queen of faeryland on a grassy knoll one day and was held in thrall by her for seven long years.

The company rode on, and Monday followed their progress with wistful eyes. Her work-roughened hands tightened on the cloak, and she vowed to herself that one day she would ride upon a milk-white horse and wear embroidered silk against her perfumed skin.

Enquiries among the booths and stalls sent her down to the river bank in search of Alexander. Women scrubbing their laundry and keeping a watchful eye on their splashing children directed her upstream, and at last she found him, seated in the shade cast by a willow tree. His shirt sleeves were rolled above his elbows, the laces at his throat dangling open as he bent over his lectern. Now and then he paused to consult a wax tablet at his side.

As if sensing her scrutiny, he ceased writing and glanced over his shoulder. Then he smiled. ‘Mistress Monday?’ he said, in both question and greeting.

‘Your new cloak, it’s finished.’ Seating herself beside him, she put the garment down on the grass. ‘I know it’s not the time to be thinking of winter,’ she added with a rueful glance at the burning blue sky.

He set aside the lectern to examine and admire the cloak. ‘When I do need it, I will remember the day on which it was given and it will make a cold day seem warmer,’ he said gallantly, and inclined his head like a courtier.

Monday blushed with pleasure. ‘We both sewed the seams, but the embroidery is mine.’

‘And very fine it is too. Even a great lord would be proud to own such a cloak.’

Her face reddened further at his compliment. She lowered her eyes and plucked at the grass stems around her skirt. ‘The cloak wasn’t the only reason I came to find you.’

‘No?’ He stoppered his ink horn to prevent the contents from drying out, and cleaned the tip of his quill on a scrap of linen. Then he leaned back on his elbows and gave her his attention.

She told him about the position her father had been offered and how it extended to him and Hervi too. ‘At Lammastide, we are to enter the service of Bertran de Lavoux.’

‘Does your father know him?’

‘I do not think I have ever heard Papa mention his name. Why do you ask?’

Alexander shrugged. ‘Normally patrons recruit men with whom they have ties, either of blood-bond or obligation. After that, they take on recommendation.’

Monday gave him a disapproving scowl. ‘Have you not heard the saying “Never look a gift horse in the mouth”?’

‘A man who does that is quite likely to find himself holding a nag,’ Alexander retorted, then with a sidelong glance said more gently, ‘Still, if it is a genuine offer, then it is excellent news. A roof and food throughout the winter, wages too.’

Monday was silent for a moment, deliberating whether to remain with him or take umbrage at the clouds he had put in her sky and stalk away. The former won. It was pleasant by the river in the dappled shade, and she had no desire to return to the stultifying heat of the tent.

‘What are you writing?’ she asked, to change the subject, and scratched her head.

‘Oh, nothing, a will for one of the knights.’ He nodded at her action. ‘You can take it off if you want. I promise not to tell anyone.’

Monday deliberated. She longed to tear the hated wimple off, to be free of its itching constriction. From a view of common sense and reason, it was stupid that she should have to wear one at all in this heat, but the moral viewpoint was different.

‘There is no one to see,’ Alexander persuaded with a smile, ‘and your face is as pink as a boiled salmon.’

Monday bit her lip, and hesitated, but his words tipped the balance. She didn’t want to look like a boiled salmon. Raising her hand, she plucked the detested garment from her head. Her long golden-brown hair tumbled down, unwinding from its plait, damp tendrils framing her brow.

Alexander nodded approval. ‘Much better.’

Monday looked at the wimple in her hands, and then stared out over the turbid glimmer of the water. ‘On my way to find you, I saw a fine company riding to inspect the tourney field,’ she murmured. ‘There was a woman who wore a gown of silk so fine that I could almost see through it, and her veil seemed to be made of butterfly wings. And then I gazed down at myself, and felt as rough and drab as a sparrow.’

‘You don’t look it,’ Alexander said gallantly.

She lifted her hair from her neck and puffed out her cheeks. ‘My mother was born to great wealth and privilege. Once, the silk gowns, the fine horses were hers, but she gave them up to follow my father. I do not think that I would have done such a thing.’

Alexander eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Is that what you want now? The silk gowns, the fine horses?’

‘Of course I do,’ she said, in a tone that suggested he was foolish even for asking. Her focus grew distant. ‘Sometimes at night, when I cannot sleep, I lie and dream of all that might be mine. My clothes are made of the rarest fabrics, and someone else has the toil of putting in all those tiny stitches. Servants fetch and carry the water, launder the linen, cook the food. My skin is perfumed, smooth and soft. I have a lapdog, and I sit on my feather bed eating sugared plums and almond suckets. And when I ride abroad on my Spanish palfrey, people strew flowers in my path and exclaim at my grace and beauty.’ Leaning over, she unfastened her shoes and discarded them. Having taken off her wimple, she reasoned that she might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.

The sun twinkled invitingly on the water. Monday inched down the bank until she could dip her toes in the river’s cool, slow current. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw that Alexander was smiling. ‘You think it funny?’ she said defensively.

‘No, no,’ he said quickly. ‘Or if I do it is only because I could not imagine the lady of your description dabbling her toes in the water on a hot summer afternoon.’

‘That is the whole point,’ Monday said fiercely. ‘If I was wealthy, I could do as I pleased.’ She swished her ankles and splashed the hem of her gown.

‘Your wealth would all belong to your father or your husband.’

She tossed her head. ‘Not if I was a widow,’ she said firmly, refusing to tolerate a worm in the bud. ‘My wealth would be mine to do with as I saw fit.’

He made a dubious sound. ‘But you’d never smile. Your teeth would be rotten from eating all those sugared plums and almond suckets.’

‘Well, what about you?’ she said, somewhat impatiently. ‘Don’t you have dreams?’

‘Yes,’ Alexander said, ‘but some are nightmares.’

She saw him flex his arms, as if against a restraint, and thought of the marks on his wrists, which, even after ten weeks, had not fully faded. ‘About the monastery?’

He made a shrugging motion, but did not speak.

‘Why didn’t you want to become a monk?’ It was a question Monday had often wanted to ask, but until now there had not been a suitable opportunity.

He dug a stone out of the grass and threw it into the water with a fierce thrust of his arm. ‘My father died when I was eleven years old, and my oldest brother, Reginald, inherited his estate. It was his idea to fit me for the church, and I had no say in the matter since he was my official guardian. We were only halfbrothers, and he had no fondness for me. There were twenty years between us.’

‘Twenty?’ Monday said with surprise, and then realised that there would be fifteen between herself and the infant her mother was carrying.

‘My father was a widower with five sons when he went on crusade and brought home a Byzantine wife. I was the result of their union. She died of spotted fever when I was eight years old. Reginald never liked her; he thought her an infidel with strange ways. She was dark and pretty and not much older than him.’ Alexander found another stone and hurled it after the first one. ‘Reginald promised my father on his deathbed that he would make good provision for me, and so he did – Cranwell Priory. I was to be washed in the blood of the lamb until my fleece was whiter than mountain snow.’

Unconsciously he touched the leather cord around his neck. Monday knew that he wore a cross on it, had even seen it on rare occasions, a beautiful thing of real gold, set with precious stones. But obviously its value to him lay in more than material worth.

He saw her looking and tugged the jewel out of his shirt. ‘My mother’s,’ he said. ‘Reginald would have dearly loved to get his grasping hands on it, but my father made him acknowledge my rights before witnesses – Hervi being one of them.’

Monday nodded, although she could not begin to imagine what it must be like. To lose both parents and be put in the charge of a guardian who begrudged your existence and wanted to be rid of you as quickly as possible. ‘So you did not settle at the priory?’

The cross sparkled in the sunlight. ‘At first it was all right,’ he admitted. ‘For three years they tried with me and I tried to fit in. Devotion was not in my vocabulary, but I had a roof over my head in exchange for prayers and labour. Then our sub-prior died and a new one came to our community – Brother Alkmund.’ His mouth curled around the word with revulsion. ‘Everything changed. Within a month of his arrival I ran away, only to be brought back and scourged. He liked scourging, did Alkmund.’ He looked at her sidelong. ‘That is the stuff of my nightmares, the beating, the humiliation, the need to strike back.’

Monday made a small sound in her throat because she felt that she had to respond, but she knew that she was out of her depth. What did she know of such things? A life on the tourney circuit was difficult and dangerous, but throughout she had been cushioned by the security of parental presence and love.

He looked at her a moment longer, and when she said nothing, he turned his attention to the cross shining over the palm of his hand. ‘As to my dream,’ he murmured to the gold, ‘I want my name to be known throughout England, the Angevin empire and beyond. I want Reginald to know that I can make my way in the world better than he can, and without the advantage of all his inherited privileges.’ Then he shook his head and gave a short laugh. When he spoke again, his voice was hard and determined. ‘I call it a dream, but it is more than that. It is my goal, my ambition, and every day that I live is a step more towards it.’